Pagefile size when having 8Gb of RAM?
August 4th, 2013
I’m about to perform a clean install of windows 7 on a 120Gb SSD. I would like to conserve as much space as possible on this disk because I want to install all my apps on it and the games I play the most.
So my question is: how large should the page file be if I already have 8gb of ram (wich I never exceed) with the thought in head it should be as small as possible because i want to use the space for apps and games on the SSD.
Maybe completly disabling the page file is an option? Or is having a page file absolutly nessesary?
Thankx on advantage
You can disable the pagefile if you want, but you can also set the size to dynamic, that way it won’t use a lot space most of the time. If you want to set a fixed size, 1 or 2 GiBs would probably be quite sufficient.
Some apps will not run if there is no pagefile – set one to 1G or 2G, 1 is probably enough – 8G ram is pretty decently enough for all uses.
paging file would be 1300mb for 1gb ram!!If you have enough RAM, it probably won’t make much difference if you have a page or not, since it wouldn’t be used very much. If you don’t have enough RAM, then it’s the difference between the programs running or failing to load due to insufficient memory. 4gb ram is optimum for disabling page file.. u have 8 gb so disabling page file size[or vice versa] wont reduce the performance .. so its totally upto u..
check this for mem management tweaks!!
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?47212-Vista-32-64-SSD-Windows-Registry-tweaks
for knowing more abt ssd
blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
@Fluffbutt: Why won’t they run if there is no page file? I’ve never delved the Win API much, but as far as I know the memory management (thus paging as well) is completely transparent to the application. I don’t know if there’s even an API for this, but I can’t imagine why an application would want to make use of the page file explicitly.
Thank you all for replying. I remeber I’ve also read somewhere that some programs require a pagefile to run properly. So I Guess i’m just going to reduce the pagefile size to 1gb. Tank u very much all
But still.. I’m intrigued if the pagefile can be disabled without having issues with certan apps. Can somebody prove this?
Also, can regular DRAM be dedicated to be used as VRAM?
There are plenty of reports of people on the internet, that run their computers without a page file without experiencing problems.
As for your second question: Not without explicit support from the video card I believe.
@Fluffbutt: Why won't they run if there is no page file? I've never delved the Win API much, but as far as I know the memory management (thus paging as well) is completely transparent to the application. I don't know if there's even an API for this, but I can't imagine why an application would want to make use of the page file explicitly.Some apps will refuse to run without one. It’s not because they can’t but because they wont. If you have more than enough memory a better choice would be to keep a RAM disk and keep your page file inside that.
So basically, you mean the programmers thought they were being incredibly smart?
As for the RAM Disk, sounds like a good idea, can you have one that only actually uses memory when required on Windows? (just like Linux’ tmpfs does)
It’s more of a case of backwards compatibility.
Some programs need a lot of memory, on a small memory system (512Mb lets say), they had to check to make sure the page file was 1-2G setting – they would fail if there was a zero/no pagefile – some would just warn you and keep running, some would warn and close, some would just not start at all.
If memory serves me, Photoshop started out like this – it MIGHT still have code to test for page files.
At any rate, you CAN set it to zero/no page file. Just bear in mind that you might come across that one program that insists you have a pagefile.
If you don’t, all well and good!
Try it – set it to no pagefile and reboot – play games and do your normal stuff, if all is well, Bingo! you win!
Fluffbutt replied: It's more of a case of backwards compatibility.
Some programs need a lot of memory, on a small memory system (512Mb lets say), they had to check to make sure the page file was 1-2G setting - they would fail if there was a zero/no pagefile - some would just warn you and keep running, some would warn and close, some would just not start at all.
If memory serves me, Photoshop started out like this - it MIGHT still have code to test for page files.
At any rate, you CAN set it to zero/no page file. Just bear in mind that you might come across that one program that insists you have a pagefile.
If you don't, all well and good!
Try it - set it to no pagefile and reboot - play games and do your normal stuff, if all is well, Bingo! you win!
Thank you for ur helpful reply!
-paroxysM^ replied: Some apps will refuse to run without one. It's not because they can't but because they wont. If you have more than enough memory a better choice would be to keep a RAM disk and keep your page file inside that.
I’d agree with this…
Gavotte RAMdisk is a pretty handy app.
You can always split the pagefile over two seperate disks
Fluffbutt is spot on
try it and see what happens, I have run at times with out one
or you could set it to 50mb so there is one there if something checks
The use of a ramdisk for a pagefile is counter productive:
The ram is taken and allocated even if the pagefile is empty.
The ram is taken and allocated – it can’t be used for a program, which might mean the pagefile gets used when it wouldn’t have been if the ram was free.
The ram is taken and allocated - it can't be used for a program, which might mean the pagefile gets used when it wouldn't have been if the ram was free.
If you have more than enough memory per say 16GB or more allocating a GB or so for a pagefile isn’t really a big deal. You wouldn’t notice a hit with 8 gigs either depending on what you do.
I agree with 16, possibly even 8.. any less and it’s counter productive.
Tweaking the pagefile has outplayed it’s role since some time now…
If ur running W7 and have that much RAM u shouldnt need to change settings for pagefile at all!
Definitly do NOT try to cache pagefile in RAM, you WILL get instability
(Just for the record – i’m MCSA, MCE, CNA and CNE)
Fluffbutt replied: The use of a ramdisk for a pagefile is counter productive:
The ram is taken and allocated even if the pagefile is empty.
The ram is taken and allocated - it can't be used for a program, which might mean the pagefile gets used when it wouldn't have been if the ram was free.
Yes, I don’t see any point in having a ramdisk unless your program can specifically use it..Like you want to store something quickly that you would normally put on a hard drive temporally..
Otherwise, Windows will allocate memory quite well by itself..